Recently, we are seeing a huge increase in athletes wanting to take their training more seriously. It's also safe to assume that you (as the reader) are one of those very people. Now there are two main ways you can do this, think of Morpheus in the Matrix, Pill A) train harder or Pill B) train smarter, those who choose to go down pathway A need to be careful as this can be a swift route to introduce excessive fatigue/overtraining. Secondly, those who go down pathway B must ensure they are training smarter by better understanding their physiology.
So, you've picked the safe option and decided Pill B (train smarter) makes a whole lot more sense than trying to find another 10 hours a week, amongst the full-time job, family commitments and British weather. Now, when it comes to measuring your blood lactate levels, there are a lot of caveats to getting a correct sample and this article aims to have you doing that in as little as 5 minutes!
First things first, SAFETY! This is critical to doing any testing which involves any invasive measurement of bodily fluids. You do not want to run the risk of cross-contamination, which will if done improperly result in the spreading of blood-borne viruses. Make sure to clean down your work area with antibacterial wipes or solution, as well as wear gloves if handling another person's testing for them. Now the following procedures can be used with any lactate analyser, however, in this instance, we are going to be discussing specific step-by-step instructions for using the Lactate Pro 2 since we provide these units as part of our sports science hire service.
1) Clean your work area safely and ensure that you have everything laid out and prepared for your testing session. As a minimum, you will need a blood lactate analyser, alcohol or pre-injection wipes, lancing device and non-woven swabs/gauze.
2) With clean, dry hands remove a test strip from the aluminium pack. Insert this fully into the test strip slot (located at the bottom of the analyser). You will hear a beep when the meter turns on. A full display appears. A flashing blood symbol and the most recent test result appear on the screen. If the meter times out (5 minutes) please remove and reinsert the strip to awaken the unit.
3) Disinfect the puncture site with the alcohol wipes and allow it to either air dry (15-30 secs) or wipe with the dry non-woven swabs and/or gauze.
4) Use your lancing device to create a small puncture to either the fingertip or ear lobe. For those inexperienced, it is advised you use your fingertip as this is likely to be easier to control.
5) Press lightly onto the surrounding area to create a small pool of blood, and use clean gauze to wipe away the first sample/drop of blood, this needs to be a firm wipe to ensure that there are no contaminants in your next sample. Once done, you can again press lightly to build another small pool ready for your sample to be taken.
6) Make sure that the flashing blood symbol is still present on your lactate device (if unsure see point 2). Then touch the tip of the test strip at a 90-degree angle to the drop of blood and allow the test strip to draw up blood until the check window is filled and the analyser begins to count down from 15 seconds.
7) When the 15 seconds have passed, your result will be presented. If ‘Hi’ or ‘Lo’ appears, the sample is either above 25 mmol/L or below 0.5 mmol/L respectively.
8) Once you have recorded your result, immediately remove the test strip straight out of the meter. The meter will automatically store the test result in its memory and turn itself off to save battery, ready for its next sample.
There you have it, your quick-step guide to collecting your blood lactate level whilst training or conducting a graded exercise test. In the coming weeks, we will be discussing how to interpret the results of your lactate response to exercise and how those values can influence the design of your training program. If there are any topics you'd like us to discuss please get in touch by emailing us at info@edgeperformancescience.co.uk or completing a chat form on the website.
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